Posted on 08/05/2015 2:09:33 AM PDT by markomalley
Gill Pharaoh, 75, decided to die with dignity in order to avoid “the kind of old age I have always dreaded and feared”.
She set out her reasons in a blog before carrying out an assisted suicide at the Swiss clinic on July 21st.
“I have always suspected that an ideal shelf life for many people is about 70 years,” the one-time palliative care nurse said in the blog, entitled “My last word”.
Until that age, Pharaoh said she was very fit and was able to fully participate in any activity she wanted.
“Then I had a severe attack of shingles and it all changed.”
She said she was not taking any medication but was less physically active, suffered from tinnitus and did “not want to follow this natural deterioration through to the last stage when I may be requiring a lot of help.”
In an interview with The Sunday Times before her death, published on Sunday, Pharaoh said she did not want to become “an old lady hobbling up the road with a trolley”.
But she had to travel to Switzerland to end her life because laws in Britain do not allow assisted suicide, a situation that she hoped lawmakers would change.
The number of “suicide tourists” visiting Swiss clinics doubled between 2008 and 2012, a period when 611 people from 31 countries ended their lives in the mountain country, according to a recent study.
Of these, 126 came from the UK, the study published by Zurich researchers in the Journal of Medical Ethics said.
More than double that number came from Germany (268), followed by France (66), Italy (44), the US (21), Austria (14), Canada (12), Spain (eight) and Israel (eight).
Shingles?? Oh dear. I get shingles every summer.
Guess I’d best be off, folks...Bye now :-)
Whew. I cured shingles in one week. No relapse in 5 years. Certainly is not and end of life sickness.
Shelf life for me is somewhere in the 90 range. Of course it has everything to do with what one is doing with their life.
“Do not go quietly into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
Then they cremate you and throw the urn in a lake near the “clinic.”
Dignified.
I feel sorry for anyone who was in her care... with that kind of attitude it makes me wonder if she pushed anyone along before their time. At a minimum she must have been depressing as hell to have around.
Did “Jack the dripper” Kevorkian rise like a Pheonix, to wreak havoc on the world again?
Pathetic.
Their lives must be (or have been) really crappy.
There are times when my life has been less than pleasant, but to end it and miss out on opportunities to enjoy life is just plain stupid. You never know what’s around the corner that could be exciting. And the obvious, what about loved ones, do these mental cases have any they’d like to hang around and be with?
The nursing home/old folks home is the last stop before the funeral parlor. I used to know a fellow in one of those that used their computer, he was the only one that did. It was his way of being out of there with others. He was always happy. Being on the net was his way of enjoying life in that place. The alternative was to sit in the main room with the vegetables staring aimlessly at the walls until their time came. My point is, even in a situation like that, it’s possible to have a positive attitude, like this guy, and get some enjoyment out of what’s left.
Work keeps many people alive as it seems to be their purpose and they enjoy it. If someone enjoys life by working, being productive/creative or just their way of being with people, then that’s a good thing.
I know a guy that stayed working until 76, very happy, mentally and physically strong. He was forced to retire, and dead a year later.
Suicide? You don’t have to travel to Switzerland...
“I know a guy that stayed working until 76, very happy, mentally and physically strong.”
I know plenty of nonagenarians. Most are entirely intellectually intact. One makes me cookies, and her three level home that she raised her family in stays immaculate (she cleans it, with some help from a grandson). I’ve had a 92 year old drive over to introduce me to his 60 something girlfriend (he’d been a widower for many years).
The one that makes me cookies, by the way, is 97.
I predict natural shelf life for me will be in my 70s (am 58 now), but I sure as hell wouldn’t end it.
The left is actively promoting this and will be bringing it to the USA.
There was a time when I would have thought this repugnant. Then my wonderful Dad got Alzheimers, diagnosed in 2009.
I wouldn’t wish this on any family, not even the libs. My Dad is still around, barely a shell of himself. Dependent, sometimes violent & angry, no memory of his life, and little of us. It’s like a figure you recognize, but the insides are completely foreign. Consider a beautiful chocolate in a box, and when you bite into it, it is filled with sardines.
I’ve already told my kid what I want him to do with me once certain things happen. He’s an only child, and there will be no fight on the estate.
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